At 5th Anniversary: White House Still Spinning 'Mission Accomplished' Banner

Surely you remember "Banner-gate": the controversy over the White House's shifting explanations for the now-infamous "Mission Accomplished" banner on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln that President Bush stood before in his carefully plotted photo-op exactly five years ago.

Knowing what's coming, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said on Wednesday, "President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said 'mission accomplished' for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission. And we have certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that banner. And I recognize that the media is going to play this up again tomorrow, as they do every single year."

You think? Happy to get there first.

So let's review "Banner-gate" one more time.

-First the White House claimed that the banner was the Navy's idea, it had nothing to do with it -- the sailors just wanted to celebrate their own homecoming, no more than that.

-When word emerged that the White House had actually made the banner, a spokesman explained, well, the Navy was not cut out for that sort of thing so we produced it -- but it was still all the sailors' idea!

-Okay, the White House admitted, we not only made it, we hoisted it -- but still, it was for the sailors!

-"Even that explanation didn't sit well with some long-time Bush aides," Time magazine later reported, quoting one: "They (the White House) put up banners at every event that look just like that and we're supposed to believe that at this one it was the Navy that requested one?" Other insiders recalled staffers boasting about how the president had been specifically positioned during his speech so that the banner would be captured by cameras.

And so "Bannergate" was born -- along with the image of the president spiking the ball on the five-yard line before scoring a real touchdown. "He blamed the sailors for something that his advance team staged," said General Wesley Clark. "I guess that next thing we are going to hear is that the sailors told him to wear the flight suit and prance around on the aircraft carrier. This is a president who does not want to take accountability." Well, some things never change.

Dana Perino said on Wednesday that what is important now is "how the president would describe the fight today. It's been a very tough month in Iraq, but we are taking the fight to the enemy." At least 49 U.S. troops died in Iraq in April, making it the deadliest month since September. We won't even mention the 4000 American, and tens of thousands of Iraqi, lives lost since Mission Accomplished Day -- when, as Neil Young sang, the sun set on "a golden photo op."
*
Greg Mitchell's new book is So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq. It has been hailed by Bill Moyers, Glenn Greenwald, Arianna H, and others, and features a preface by Bruce Springsteen.

Comments

[Ivar]

When Hitler did it to Poland,it was 'attack' when Hitler did it to France, it was 'attack', When Hitler did it to England, it was 'attack', When the Japonese did it to Pearl Harbor, it was 'attack', "A day that will live in infamy". When we do it to Iraq, it is 'premptive strike'.......see the difference? No? perhaps I can help. Iraq was a threat to the United States with its "wepons of mass destruction" (which the UN never found) so we went in to find them...oh... guess we never found them either. But they were a threat to the United States.....just ask Gdubya. or Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney. .......hmmmmm was this war really about oil as McCain now says?....nawwww. Is it any wonder the people distrust this administration 4000+ young American lives later?

[ignorantwillyharper]

Bush and his administration have lied to the American people from day one, so this is just one lie of many millions we've been told.
We down here in Texas had no real ideal just what a liar and a idiot we had for a Governor, as Bob Bullock pretty well pull the strings in state goverment and they kept Bush from making any sound bites to the press. Then he get's to the whitehouse thinking he's the smartest kid on the block, opens his mouth displays he's a liar and shows himself to be dumber than the village idiot....come on 1-20-09!

[mfsomom]

4064 American live lost, countless innocents, and the insanity persists....

[SeriousBlack]

You give bush too much credit. He spiked the ball on the 20 yard line. Of the opposing team.

[desmirl]

The carrier was parked off the coast so Bush could appear - thus keeping the sailors from their families. Then little Bush lands in a COD aircraft, gets out, and struts around in his faux flight suit. The next day he appears beneath his MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner. Great Comic Opera! Too bad we taxpayers have to pay such a high price for admission to the comedy.

[zwack000]

So the prez blew it with that stupid banner. It backfires and instead of reading "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" it was really meant to say:

"Mission Accomplished for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission".

Dana Perino should be positioned beneath a banner at all her appearances. It should read "Hoe For Sale". And before anyone gets the wrong idea you should read it as:

"Hoe foe Sale. It is a garden implement. It has a long handle with a right-angled metal blade on the bottom".

Not quite the sound bite but it will do.

[Whitehouse]

Arrogance is a way of seeing the world for the president. I think of the words of the late Molly Ivins--"You really have to work at it to make a result that bad."

[Ivar]

Thank you for the reminder. Molly was a great author. Came out with the truth long before others had the courage to.

[rbenjamin]

The analogy is even crazier than you describe. As I see it:

President Bush's American Gladiators are scheduled to play an important match against the Al Kaida Bombers at Haliburton stadium, Kabul. President gets confused, team arrives at Bin Laden stadium Baghdad, where he arranges a pickup game with a cocky, but equally confused local team (the Hussein Henchman). Only then does Bush spike the ball on the 5 yard line and showboat. Five years later, the big game against the Bombers is still delayed and about to be declared forfeit. What a world.

[leftLibertarian]

And still

The Spineless Democrats

Have Not Impeached

The Criminals Bush and Cheney

[Ivar]

And THAT should be done.

[Manx]

I remember the "Mission Accomplished" event very well. A local newspaper published a letter of mine stating that it would have been more appropriate if Bush had arrived on the deck of the USS Lincoln in a hot-air balloon. Afterwards, I received threatening phone calls from rednecks. I knew at that time the Bush administration was not being honest with us (Hillary didn't) but opposition to the war was not tolerated.

[bfbenn]

Now THAT is funny! (but not the threatening calls part - that's just pathetic)

[jashu51]

Yes, a hot-air balloon---what a great idea! Then li'l George could have descended from the sky like a Texan god. Maybe he was worried that his codpiece would get stuck on the basket when he de-ballooned.

[GinnyinCO]

dreamsmasher,

Hint: the banner represents the unmitigated arrogance of BushCo. The Bubble headed confidence that rejected all reasonable input on the force needed to contain the country once it was in our control. The forces needed to secure places that would be looted quickly.

The worst was Al Qaa qa, the storage depot for over 600,000 tons of explosives that BushCo had been warned, before and during the invasion, to secure. By now all that explosive shtuff has been rendered into IEDs, car bombs and blown up. Now the Iranians are helping out with explosive supplies.

The year long 'Future of Iraq" project by the State Department, under Powell, developed ways to establish security in Iraq and transition country's government. The large expert teams, with 200+ Iraqis representing most of the countrys ethnic and political groups produced thirteen volumes covering the rebuilding of everything from the oil industry to the criminal justice system. It went to the Pentagon with a list of 75 Arabic speaking specialists willing to go rebuild Iraq. Rumsfeld rejected it, never told Jay Garner about it, and subsequently threatened to fire anyone who suggested a similar plan. ( Kinzer "Overthrow" pp 314. Or Google Future of Iraq Project)

The carrier photo op was as adolescent as the invasion and occupation planning. The cost: thousands of coalition lives, hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, displacement of 4 million Iraqis, billions of dollars in millitary expenses and destruction of Iraqi infrastructure.

WE failed the country? America or Iraq?

[Sneakerface]

If you insist on blaming any non-Bush regime citizens for "failing this country" and is the people who voted for Bush for a second illegitimate term. The same people who claimed that we weren't attacked (on our soil) AGAIN, despite being attacked FOUR separate tines on 9/11, despite intelligence that this was coming if only Bush and his cronies weren't asleep at the wheel, and despite the fact that we WERE attacked again, on our soil, before the year had even ended, with the Anthrax mailings. (Not to mention our allies, like Spain, being attacked by the same terrorist group, after Bush made claims that an attack on our allies was an attack on us) . And now it is almost 7 years later, and "President" Bush "isn't really all that concerned" where Osama Bin Laden is.

[edva]

Bush lied, thousands and thousands died. And they're still lying.

[dreamsmasher]

I'm sick of hearing about a stupid banner that did nothing to hurt ANYONE, but you dimwitted Democrats have wrapped yourselves into this banner and failed the country! There are many more pressing issues that are happening out there that require the attention of not only the Government but also we the people. Get over yourselves already, if the banner means that much to you I'll have one mailed to you.

If the most important issue to you is this stupid banner then you need to get a life.

Let it go already, it's a non-issue!

[UkieOlie]

The Bush White House ONLY lies.
And "journalists" eat it up.
Chris Matthews: Americans love having a guy as president...a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not a complicated guy ... They want a guy who's president. Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It's simple. We're not like the Brits. We don't want an indoor prime minister type, or the Danes or the Dutch or the Italians, or a Putin. Can you imagine Putin getting elected here? We want a guy as president.

I would prefer an intelligent person who deals with hard truths..

[rbenjamin]

Ok, I', getting out the sock puppets for you. The banner is important because it made a huge claim:
WE WON! Well, as events clearly show anyone, Democrat, Republican, Independent or Whig, no, we didn't win.

A cockeyed optimist would say we have a long way to go before we win in Iraq. That would be John McCain setting the bar at 100 years. A realist would say we lost the war five years ago. That would be me.

The banner was a key icon in the bait and switch selling of the war. A commercial message gone bad. At 4000 dead American troops and counting, I'd say the banner hurt a lot of people.

[Sneakerface]

yeah, a "non-issue." Only the most notable physical manifestation of the reason that Republicans should never again be allowed to run this country (besides the 4,000 American caskets, but all of a sudden the public can't see or photograph them).

[kdogg]

Really? I can tell you right now I didn't fail this country. I pay taxes, vote, and I'm a contributing member of the ever shrinking middle class of this country. Myself and the many other people in this country like myself strain under the burden of supporting this country and it is our middle class hero's that fight and die in this unjust war. Our continually increasing sacrifices are taken in vain by this criminally incompetent president that does not represent us. This depressing comical farce of the mission accomplished is the perfect metaphor for the failure of this president and our government as a whole to represent our interests. This failure is the cause of these pressing issues that you speak of not me.

[johannesrolf]

middle class heros fighting the Iraq war? notachance. the war is fought by lower class volunteers.

[Luigi53102]

Yeah, remember that the next time you wrap yourself in the flag - a (star-spangled) banner.

[bigfated]

Non Issue? In your dreams. G.W.Bush "Coward-In-Chief".....not surprising since he ducked out of military service....failed at everything he's touched....butchered our constitution....and ran like a whimpering baby on 9/11....hiding out till he knew it was safe to go home-----and strut! What a miserable disaster this thug and his gang of slimy enablers have been for America----and the world. And McPain? BUSH 3......who the hell needs more of that crap?

[WindFeather]

dimwitted demo's 'eh? I am not wrapped in a banner..the point..is that..Mission Accomplished was a shameless plug..nothing more..nothing less..

The pressing issues..are, in large part, pressing due to the deficit spending of this republican..what happened to fiscal responsibility(forgetting for the moment morality of invading a non-threat)

Try again..read the post...you just might see that it was about futile hypocracy...not just of dubya..but yes..also of those complicit through submission..i.e., McHillary...

It's a decent post..not at all about the banner..any more than the Sermon on the Mount was really about actually making one fish feed thousands..it's METAPHOR...

[madron]

I'm so sick of these lying F---ers......